Reflecting Culture through Art - Personal Maps
Normandy Elementary School
Visual Arts Instructional Practices| All Students All Standards
Buhr | ASAS , Page 1
Table of Contents
Classroom Management
3
Element 1: Classroom Context
4
Element 2: Lesson Planning with Rationales for Your
Decisions
5-10
Element 3: Description of the Lesson Implementation
11
Element 4: Reflection
12
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How to Be a Poet
By Wendell Berry
(to remind myself)
Classroom Management
i
Make a place to sit down.
Sit down. Be quiet.
You must depend upon
affection, reading, knowledge,
skill—more of each
than you have—inspiration,
work, growing older, patience,
for patience joins time
to eternity. Any readers
who like your poems,
doubt their judgment.
ii
Breathe with unconditional
breath
the unconditioned air.
Shun electric wire.
Communicate slowly. Live
a three-dimensioned life;
stay away from screens.
Stay away from anything
that obscures the place it is in.
There are no unsacred places;
there are only sacred places
and desecrated places.
iii
Accept what comes from
silence.
Make the best you can of it.
Of the little words that come
out of the silence, like prayers
prayed back to the one who
prays,
make a poem that does not
disturb
the silence from which it
came.
Source: Poetry (Poetry)
Wendell Berry instructs in his poem ‘How to Be a Poet’ to : ‘Make a place to sit down. Sit
down. Be quiet.’
This is about listening; listening to the quiet. Classroom management is about listening to the
quiet space between student action and student learning.
Students do need to talk with one another about their art/art making and the art room does
look different. The quiet is about routines, relationship, safe environment, consistent kindness
and intentional adult action. All of which when in place instructional practices can and do
thrive; conversely without routines, relationship, safe environment, consistent kindness and
intentional adult action the very best resources, units and planning fall flat.
Classroom management is a deep layer within the strata of the studio classroom. It can and
does look different with every teacher. And every teacher at some point in their day or week
struggles with management of behaviors of the human beings they are charged with
educating in visual arts practices. So, think about it. How are the routines going in your
classroom? Do you have some? Are there consistent predicable things you do with your
students? Do you have systems in place that ensure the safety of all students all the time? As
the adult in the room, how do you follow up on those systems when a student/s are or become
unsafe or off task?
In my studio classroom we have agreements. Agreements look like rules; the difference is we
all generated the pieces that we felt made artists and art making meaningful as well as doable
within our studio classroom. So the change is that the students created the agreements
through group activity instead of the ‘rules’ coming from the teacher (me). The students
decided what they felt was important about ‘what arts do…’ and ‘what art is…’; then
individually made choices about what was important. In the ‘individual step’ each student from
2nd -6th grade completed some form of the following sentence: I agree to
and
so that I can
in our creative learning environment.
Then we moved from the individual back to the collective by sharing with two thought
partners (other students). For 1st grade we generated what artists do… and what is art… then
each student shared with two thought partners (other students) what they felt they could do to
be an artist and ‘do’ art. The agreements are posted in our classroom on chart paper as a
reminder; the sentences are in the student journals. The purpose in doing this is to create a
collaborative and collective responsibility for the function of the daily environment in the
studio classroom.
Classroom management must be cultivated and attended to. Management is
woven into instructional practices. There is not one without the other; to
ensure student success in the visual arts we consistently must ‘make a place’
for the ‘quiet’ in the space between management and instructional practice.
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Element 1: Classroom Context
Normandy Elementary School Profile
John Irwin School of Academic Excellence
Award since 2002.
Science/Social Studies, technology,
ecology, the Arts, and Advanced
Mathematics options support Core
Knowledge programming that sustains
rigorous learning for all.
Committed volunteers support state-ofthe-art classroom, technology, artistic, and
environmental resources.
Students at Normandy Elementary, a Core
Knowledge school, attain their highest
potential through a rigorous, content-rich educational program. Normandy has earned the prestigious
John Irwin School of Excellence Academic Award continuously since 2002 for our outstanding results
on state assessments. Normandy delivers a systemic, sequential curriculum that adheres to national,
state, and district expectations, as well as the Core Knowledge sequence in grades K-6, including an
Advanced Math option for grades 1-6. Our active parent and school community value state-of-the-art
technology in all classrooms. Normandy embodies excellence in academic achievement and character
development.
Lesson| Content area | Grade level | Class size
Students in 1st -6th grade at Normandy Elementary School go to Art, Music and
Physical Education (AMP) on a weeklong rotation. The AMP Team serves
approximately 450 students in a school population of approximately 552. There are
two full day kindergartens and one half-time kindergarten. Our class size is an
average of 28 students per grade level. We have an SIED lab from which students are
integrated into AMP; some students come with support, some are independent.
Jefferson County Visual Arts Curriculum, Core Knowledge and Colorado Visual Arts
Academic Standards are addressed within each 1st-6th grade unit of learning.
This document will focus primarily on 4th grade Reflecting Identity Through ArtPersonal Maps Colorado Teacher-Authored Instructional Unit; specifically Learning
Experiences 4 - 8.
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Element 2: Lesson Planning with Rationales for Decisions
Here's my plan book. I always fill it out on the
weekend so I have some time to think about what the week
ahead will look like; where this rotation is in the lesson or
unit; what guiding reflection sentence stems we will
address.
Art educators know this; sometimes you need
more or less time than you've allotted.
Planning is like budgeting. We are budgeting
the time according to the need of each
particular art class. Often I think of the plan
book as a map. A suggested way to get there
but this can and will change with each class.
The goal is the learning. I write the learning at the top of each class period so I can
keep track of where we are going and when I need to, not if I need to but when I need
to, I refer back to it.
In my heart, I am wondering around the studio classroom with my students. We get
interested in something and we go in that direction but it is my responsibility to bring
them back to the learning by helping them to see or discussing where the cool thing
we just figured out about color fits into our learning about mapping or portraits.
One way I have found are guiding
reflection sentence stems. These
are sometimes direct fill in the
blank questions and at times open
ended questions students begin
with one sentence stem and end
the class with another sentence
stem. We close the class with the
students either offering the
learning reflection to the whole
group or a turn or talk model at
tables.
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The reflection process helps the students 'do what artists do…' that is to say they are
thinking about what they have done the day or rotation before and they are looking
ahead to considering the possibilities of their work in the current class.
To address 4th grade Reflecting Identity Through Art- Personal Maps Colorado
Teacher-Authored Instructional Unit with my students I decided to start with the
portrait. The endeavor was to move the student past making an image of their face
for their personal map. We looked
at portraits and talked about
portraits. We discussed how artists
use portraits to tell a story. Then
we practiced and sometimes were
introduced to strategies for
drawing facial features.
This is done through a direct
instruction gradual release
modality. I use Sketchbook Pro on
my IPad and the AirServer
program to project the drawing
onto a screen in my classroom so
all students can see. We practice
and students are encouraged and
given time to develop their own
drawing strategies.
Part of the reason I do gradual
release in my classroom is to
model to the students in how and
why choices are made. It is always
clear to them that if they find
through their practice a new
strategy then WONDERFUL! And
we all share our new discoveries
and celebrations.
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Here are some examples from 4th grade collograph portraits:
After we experienced a very frenetic and fun day of collograph printing we stepped
back and discussed who this portrait might be.
Thinking about portraits as storytelling we moved on to telling our own story. We started
by drawing a map of a bird's eye view of a place we go almost every day. The students
created alongside the map a collection of colors that represent parts of who they are
for example; likes, dislikes, culture. The next step in our planning was to assign shapes
and lines ‘symbol’ to each of ‘our parts that represent us’ (likes, dislikes, ambitions,
traditions, culture).
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Here are student examples of ‘envisioning’ places, symbols and colors that are
personal.
Putting these pieces of
‘envisioning’ side by side; someplace
we go almost every day, color and
symbols that are personal was
intentionally planned to build context
for mapping and self-portraiture
through color, symbol and personal
vision.
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Skill building is an often explored world.
Scaffolding lessons into bigger concepts like
personal maps sometimes feels like we are
collecting a wide variety of experiences that
might seem unrelated. I talk to the students
about how we are moving from one piece to the
next and to think about this as research. We are
doing what artists do -- we are gathering our
ideas and skills.
Meaning when I introduce a skill like color mixing I give the students ways to mix and
think about the colors they have chosen for their personal maps that are experiential
and exercises to build awareness of color theory; we considered what would happen
if we mixed complements and primaries and discovered some lovely no color colors.
The students created a plan in their journal using their symbols and colors and
adding in a larger symbol to serve as the shape of the map. The students were
encouraged to think about something that they identified with because they liked it,
wanted to be it someday or something that was
a tradition or part of their culture. The personal
The purpose here to enlist symbols and
symbols and colors were then arranged in the
colors was to take a deliberate step away from
map in regions; similar to the regions in our
the image of the face as the only way to express
own lives, the maps tell the stories of the
who we are to the world.
regions of the identities of the students.
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Students transferred their plans to drawing paper then overhead projector film. At
this time we are painting the film using acrylic paint.
Here are examples of in process student work.
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Element 3: Description of the Lesson Implementation
The 4th grade Reflecting Identity through Art- Personal Maps Colorado TeacherAuthored Instructional Unit has been and continues to be a varied and layered
process of teaching and art making for both my students and me. The lessons began
with looking at portraiture and portraits then moved to symbol and color, next to skill
building with color the planning personal maps and now we are painting our maps.
A light went on one day when I was thinking through how and what I was going to
demonstrate for our planning. Seems obvious but modeling is a key component in
my students success and independence in my studio classroom.
How I model and what I model to my students is then modeled in the work.
The implementation of the unit and lessons described is, at the core about modeling.
It matters when are students gathered around to be shown the 'next step' or the
'how to apply' demonstration that I am intentional in my words and actions. I believe
that what is important about what I do is how I am demonstrating through my actions
that art making is not so much about talent but more about practice.
Demonstrating practice in planning, in thinking through choices of images or color
and all of the implicit pieces of art making should happen through in modeling.
I look for evidence in student work after a demonstration that helps me see if the
demonstration met the goal for the designated portion of learning. Not that the
students are doing what I did; rather I know a demonstration has been successful
when I see and hear an interpretation of what I showed. I rarely hang up the
demonstration piece; instead leave it out on a table so students can 'check'. I do this
because students who have executive functioning or processing challenges need the
opportunity to listen, watch then 'check back'; leaving the demonstration piece out
gives everyone the opportunity to 'check back'.
While teaching 4th grade Reflecting Identity Through Art- Personal Maps Colorado
Teacher-Authored Instructional Unit my intentional practice has been to model my
vision, my story and to clearly show how to think through ideas while making sure that
students understand there are many different strategies.
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Element 4: Reflection
We have been in
school for a little
over two months. I
have seen all 450
of my students for
two rotations. This
means we spent
approximately 8
hours together.
A very short
amount of time
relative to the
volume of work the
students have
already produced.
To clarify:
produced means
sketch journal,
processes,
reflecting, discussion and all the pieces we do each lesson. In the studio classroom I
maintain ‘an every moment counts’ approach. It has been very interesting to talk with
and build connections with the students through their personal maps. I see this
happening amongst the students as well when we are sharing our ideas and working.
Scaffolding and front loading skills, planning and applications has been the most
meaningful learning for me in teaching 4th grade Reflecting Identity Through ArtPersonal Maps Colorado Teacher-Authored Instructional Unit. The data that drives my
practice is what I use to design and build the lesson for the next day. For example, we
explored and exercised our color mixing skills because the evidence of blending a
variety of colors that were personal and specific to each students vision was that the
students needed a means to create their own color vocabulary through for their
personal map. So we stepped to the side and fine-tuned our skills, then stepped
forward to use them.
More reflection about instructional practice can be found on my blog: Art Spirit.
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